First air date 1947 as KMAE Class B City of license Cockrell Hill Owner Lrad Media, LLC Sister stations KKGM, KGGR, KHVN | Language(s) Vietnamese Frequency 1600 kHz Format Full service Branding Radio Saigon Dallas | |
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Broadcast area Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Power 25,000 watts (Daytime)
930 watts (Nighttime) Former callsigns KMAE (1947-1965)
KYAL (1965-1976)
KXVI (1976-1985)
KTNS (1985-1987)
KSSA (1987-1993) Area Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex | ||
KRVA, branded as "Radio Saigon Dallas 1600", is a Vietnamese language radio station, broadcasting in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. This station is licensed in Cockrell Hill, Texas and is licensed to Lrad Media, LLC.
History
This station started their broadcasting activities in 1947 as KMAE on an Entertainment format operating during the daytime hours only in McKinney, Texas. Then in 1965, the station changed to KYAL (call letters stood for "y'all"), playing Country music. Over a decade later, the station has moved to Plano, Texas, as the branding and formats changed once again to KXVI (callsign stood for "16" in Roman numbers) under various religious formats. Recently, the KXVI calls were re-used at 100.5 FM in Pittsburg (not to be mistaken for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) for "The Bridge Network," a DFW-based religious broadcaster serving East Texas. In 1985, the station changed to an all-news station as KTNS. It went off the air after January 7, 1987.
About 7 months later, the station was revived by Spanish Radio Pioneer Marcos Rodriguez, Sr., father of Marcos A. Rodriguez as KSSA (recently resurrected from 1270 AM) on a Spanish format, relocated to Cockrell Hill (which has a high Hispanic population) and a sister station to Kansas City-based KSSA-FM. In 1993, Z-Spanish Media and Entravision bought KSSA and changed the callsign to KRVA while maintaining its Spanish format. In the 1990s, it has simulcasted News 8 at 6:00PM (CT) from WFAA-TV in Spanish.
There was also a period, including summer and autumn of 2005, during which 1600 am broadcast an Asian format (including Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and English languages), with music, talk, games and advertising relating to the Asian community in the D/FW area.
On November 2006, Entravision sold KRVA to Mortenson Broadcasting after selling the other stations to Liberman Broadcasting.
It was announced on October 21, 2011 that Mortenson Broadcasting will be selling three of its sister stations and (2 AM and 1 FM translator) to Salem Communications. Mortenson will also spin off this station to Pacificstar Media II Corporation for $1.4 Million in cash. Sometime in October 2012, KRVA switched to its current Vietnamese format (previously on KTXV), abandoning the previous Spanish religious programming.
Pacificstar Media sold the station to Lrad Media, LLC for $1.9 million; the transaction was consummated on March 17, 2014.